When you know, you know

BY Laura Lovejoy

I am 22 and Clint is 30, we have lived together for the past two years and are in what I would call a very serious relationship. Whether it happens in five months or five years, the next step in our lives is for us to get engaged. Yet, most of the time when I talk about getting engaged or how serious we are I am bet with the response, “but you’re so young”. We are constantly in a battle of being too young or too old. If I was 27 and without a boyfriend, I would be met with “aren’t you going to settle down soon?”. It’s almost like there is this short time period between 25 and 26 when it’s okay to be in a serious relationship but also still okay to be single and anything either side of that is frowned upon.

If you’re in a relationship where you can’t grow as a person and do all the things you would when you’re single, (I’m talking girls holidays and big nights out, not one night stands) then you’re in the wrong relationship. It has nothing to do with age. Some people search a lifetime for what I have with Clint – the good bits, not the balling my eyes out at 4 am because Clint wanted to stay in the club when I wanted to go home. But all jokes aside, why would I give up being happy simply because I am 22?

I know that the best thing for me in my life right now is to be with Clint, yes he drives me mad 99% of the time but then so do most human beings. Not only do I love him and want to spend the rest of life with him but it makes sense, in two years time there is a strong possibility that we could own our own home and I have been able to go to New York, Rome, Paris and do amazing things because we have two incomes.

I’m not saying it’s about money, at one point we only had my £500 wage each month to live off and we have been through points where I have paid for everything from that, even down to Clint’s night’s outs, but It’s about building a future together. In my eyes, the sooner you can prepare for the future, not that you need a man to do that, the better.

The point I am trying to make is that people will judge you, no matter what. They will judge you for your hair colour, they will judge you for your choice in men and they will judge you for you for choosing to be single. So whether your 22 and in a happy relationship, or you don’t find love until you’re 40 – when you know, you know. And, when you do know, you need to hold on to it, no matter how old you are.

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About Laura Lovejoy

Without sounding like I'm on a game show, I'm Laura, I'm 24 and I'm from London.

I created this blog is for women like me. Women who worry about things they shouldn’t, women who work fucking hard but know how to play even harder and women that are navigating that minefield called love.